Lawmakers press US Attorney General Pam Bondi on Epstein files and cases against Donald Trump’s foes

A defiant Attorney General Pam Bondi defended her record in a Senate hearing Tuesday (local time), eagerly clashing with Democrats who accused her of weaponising the agency to target President Donald Trump’s foes.

Testifying before the Senate Judiciary Committee, Ms Bondi countered that it was her predecessors in the Biden Administration who had politicised the department.

She touted her efforts in eight months in office to refocus federal law enforcement on combating illegal immigration and violent crime.

“They were playing politics with law enforcement powers and will go down as a historic betrayal of public trust,” Ms Bondi said.

“This is the kind of conduct that shatters the American people’s faith in our law enforcement system. We are working to earn that back every single day.”

But Democrats expressed alarm about what they described as Mr Trump’s growing influence over Justice Department decisions, including his demands last month that Bondi move to quickly prosecute his perceived foes, including former FBI director James B. Comey.

Senator Dick Durbin (Illinois), the committee’s top Democrat, said that level of White House interference would “make even President Nixon recoil.” His colleague Senator Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) was more blunt.

“What was once the Department of Justice has become the Department of Revenge and Corruption,” she said.

“Rather than pursuing cases without fear or favour, this DOJ seeks to favour the President’s friends and instil fear in his alleged enemies.”

Tuesday’s hearing, Ms Bondi’s first appearance before the Judiciary Committee since her confirmation hearing in January, came a day before Mr Comey was set to be arraigned in a federal court in Virginia on charges of lying to Congress, allegations he has denied.

The Justice Department secured its indictment against him over objections from career prosecutors - including Erik S. Siebert, the former US attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia - who had concluded there was insufficient evidence to move forward with a case.

Asked about her role in that investigation and the Administration’s decision to oust Mr Siebert to make way for a new appointee willing to pursue a prosecution, Ms Bondi refused to answer and repeatedly said she would not discuss ongoing criminal matters.

She sidestepped questions on a number of other pressing issues. Those included her conversations with Mr Trump, an internal probe of the role played by senior Justice Department officials in the decision to drop the corruption case against New York Mayor Eric Adams, and the legal basis for recent military strikes on boats that Administration officials say were engaged in drug trafficking.

Instead, Ms Bondi appeared to relish the opportunity to spar publicly with her critics and repeatedly responded to questions from Democrats with non sequiturs that included personal attacks.

She accused Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) of lying about his military record to win elections, insinuated Hirono supported Antifa and questioned campaign donations Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island) received that Republicans have since sought to link to a donor tied to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.

She angrily dismissed Senator Durbin when he asked whether Trump had consulted with her before his deployment of National Guard troops to Chicago, a city Senator Durbin represents.

“I wish you loved Chicago as much as you hate President Trump,” Ms Bondi shot back. “If you’re not going to protect your citizens, President Trump will.”

Republicans, including Sen. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), commended Ms Bondi’s leadership as a necessary corrective after years of what they assail as politicised decision-making under the Biden Administration.

Senator Grassley on Monday released records indicating that the FBI, under Biden, had analysed phone records of several GOP lawmakers - including some of the Judiciary Committee’s members - as part of its investigation into Mr Trump’s alleged efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

Those records were obtained through a grand jury investigation led by special counsel Jack Smith and showed only the numbers those lawmakers called and the duration of the calls, not the content of their discussion. Smith had previously disclosed steps taken by his team to investigate whether lawmakers had been involved in Mr Trump’s alleged efforts.

Senator Grassley on Tuesday called those actions by Mr Smith “an outrage” and an “unconstitutional breach.” He and several Republican members of the committee pressed Ms Bondi to launch an investigation of the matter and potentially pursue criminal prosecution.

GOP lawmakers have been far less effusive over Ms Bondi’s handling of the Epstein investigation, an issue that continues to roil Capitol Hill.

Since the Justice Department and the FBI reversed course this summer and opted not to disclose more information from their investigative files, Republicans, buffeted by pressure from their base, have demanded greater transparency.

Ms Bondi refused to answer questions from Democrats on her decisions in the Epstein investigation.

She was pressed Tuesday on her remarks in a TV interview earlier this year that she had Epstein’s client list - a supposed roster of Epstein friends and allies that conspiracy theorists have suggested may have been complicit in his crimes - waiting on her desk for review.

The Justice Department and FBI later clarified in a memo that no such list existed, a contradiction of Ms Bondi’s earlier statements that drew criticism from the right.

“I said I had not reviewed it yet,” Ms Bondi testified Tuesday. “And if you see our memo on Epstein, you will see our memo clearly points out there was no client list.”

Several senators pressed Ms Bondi on vows she made during her confirmation hearing in January that politics would play no part in her role as attorney general and that she would not use the office to target Mr Trump’s enemies.

She maintained at the time that she could not imagine a scenario in which the President might ask her to do something immoral, illegal or unconstitutional over the objections of career Justice Department staffers.

Senator Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota) pressed the attorney general on how she could square those promises with the department’s efforts to investigate Comey and others and Mr Trump’s public demands that Ms Bondi move quickly to prosecute his longtime foes.

Ms Bondi insisted Tuesday: “I absolutely have upheld that commitment.”

Perry Stein and Katherine Tarrant contributed to this report.

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